Ascension is a scam perpetuated by the Council of Loathing and the Naughty Sorceress working together.

Once you beat the Naughty Sorceress and free King Ralph; the Council will no longer be in power (something they comment on.) You are then pushed to "ascend" which results in the Reset Button being pushed. Sure, you may have some extra power if you did the previous Ascension run at a high enough difficulty, but for a while the Council and the Naughty Sorceress are back in power.

The council is aware of what usually happens in ascensions. In a recent "rain" event where all the bosses are replaced by water elementals, they comments that "So there was a water dragon in the Cyrpt? Huh. That's unexpected. We thought it would just be an ancient skeletal dragon, like usual. This rain is absolutely crazy, Adventurer." 'Like usual' huh?

The January 1st, 2015 revamp of the Naughty Sorceress Quest has the player character meet a talking skull named Frank, who makes an offhand remark about the Sorceress being in power for four thousand years, even though she only took power just before the player character arrived in the Kingdom, because "time's weird here." Not only that, he also knows exactly what the Astral Gash is even before the player is made aware of ascension, implying that he's been through this cycle before. Whatever the case, time has apparently been set up to cycle back on itself, keeping the Sorceress (and the Council) in power forever.

The kicker? Adventurers who are old enough to remember the Gray Plague event will recall that the cure was recovered from the future, after the Council of Loathing opened a temporal rift to Seaside Town, 28 Days Later. Meaning that, somehow, the Council has learned how to control time.

There are four different political powers trying to control the players, with each having its own agenda in regards to the Naughty Sorceress and Ascension.

There is of course the Naughty Sorceress the current controlling power in the world, that would rather you not get in the way of her plans. If you defeat her she would like you to ascend so she can put herself back into power.
There is then the Council of Loathing, that desires the Naughty Sorceress to be defeated but don't want King Ralph to be set free, as without him or her they are now in power and happy. Should you go and free the King then they would like you to ascend so perhaps they can find a new chance to get back into power.
Then of we have King Ralph that wants the players to set him free and NEVER come back (unless he gets trapped again). When he's in power there is no need for Adventurers and they only would disrupt his hold on power.
Lastly there is the Penguin Mafia that tries to control as much of the meat economy as they can. Presently they like the players to not Ascend as it means that they are bringing more meat into the Kingdom. The more meat people have the more likely they are to spend it on extravagancies that they provide.

So in conclusion:

Council: Wants you to ascend and return.

Sorceress: wants you to give up, or ascend.

King Ralph XI: wants you to stay in the kingdom, i.e. Aftercore

Mafia: Aftercore (you lose access to your meat at the start of an ascension, so you can't spend it.)

As opposed to that training manual you find. But hey, it literally costs millions of currency to get that, so finders keepers.

Every adventurer is some sort of experimental lizardman.

Think about it for a moment. Missing fingers, for example. Entirely temporary— they just grow right back. Missing kidney also seems to wear off, but that might be a bug. Either way, we seem to have some sort of regenerative power. The obvious conclusion is that the Council has created a race of superpowerful lizardmen which they use as a workforce and as an organ farm— every rollover, they take out all of our organs. It's okay, we have a redundant set, and the other set grows back by next rollover.

This may overlap with the "Ascension is a scam" theory, as it's a good way to keep the lizard people from getting bored.

After all, lizardmen are easily bored, and can even turn apathetic. So what does that make the lizardmen in Daily Dungeon? Former adventurers? Or the base species the adventurers were created from?

One problem with this is that all creatures apparently can regenerate: The head of the Elf Revolutionaries mentioned that it would take a week to regrow his arm, a prospect that only mildly annoyed him at best.

The Crimbo elves are part-lizardman too, it helped them survive the Crimbomination.

Half-Eaten Brain also wears off completely after a few adventures. More to the point, nothing in the entire game, including huge explosions, bone-pulverizing monster attacks, etc. is capable of doing any permanent damage to you; just use a few potions or rest for a while and you're back in the game. Something highly potent seems to be at work here.

More evidence, Zombie Slayer Challenge Path starts with you Dead to Begin With and a zombie.. At the end, you re-create the zombie cure. It doesn't work on anyone else who already turned (it just prevents it from happening) but it does on you; you come back to life. It's those freaky lizard genetics.

All adventurers in the Kingdom are half-siblings.

They all have the same archaeologist as a father, after all.

That archaeologist certainly got around.

Not necessarily; there could have been a very, VERY large group of archaeologists who solved the puzzle together. Or, fitting in with the theory above, his notes are all fake and created by the Council.

Think about it. Frank Vivala disappeared through a temporal rift (alluded to as a possibility on the Ko L Wiki) and, finding another person who wanted to overthrow the King, formulated a plot. The "worthless" objects he accepts are really magical talismans which create horrible monsters, which the Scream Queen creates to cause havoc. By trading trinkets which increase monster power (and hence adventurer power) for items which help adventurers finish quests, he not only provides the Kingdom with a steady stream of monsters but avoids creating suspicion of the conspiracy.

The game takes place in the Dark Tower multiverse

From what I know, the series ends with Roland ending up exactly where he started, but slightly better equipped for the events afterwards. Sound familiar?

Hodgman is clearly the epitome of insanity and all t/he/y requires to Back from the Dead is for the sewers to reflood; something clans want to happen. All the while, they read more and more of his Tome of Eldritch Lore and acquire his artifacts and becoming more and more Hobo.

Note how Hodgman somehow wrested an aspect of Satan away in the form of his Hot Elemental Lieutenant; Ol' Scratch.

In that case, the Slime Mother is Shub-Neggorath.

A shapeless blobbythingie that spawns indescribable horrors who are so profane, they get their own damage type that bypasses normal elemental resistance? That sounds pretty Lovecraftian.

Just because you accidentally burn down the wooden model of Seaside Town doesn't mean that is what was supposed to happen. Ed's MacGuffin that he was personally guarding and the one that his staff and map pointed to are two different things. You are "digging in the wrong place."

Let's assume for a moment that the beam of light landed on the Council building. This would support the "Ascension is a scam" theory due to the Council having the MacGuffin all along. Although this would bring up the question of why the Council would send you on the quest anyway.

Keep in mind that the Holy MacGuffin quest is the single longest quest in the entire game (possibly even longer than Wossname Award for the next one). The Council would want to keep you busy for as long as possible and test your abilities to their fullest extent to support their dual intentions of remaining in power for as long as possible in any given time warp (because they get reset when you do, clearing them of any extra mansions or yachts they may have used tax payer money to acquire) and trying to develop the ultimate super-adventurer weapon.

The ultimate prize for the new Nemesis Quest are a pair of Legendary Epic Pants.

Your guild member says that the Legendary Epic Hat (what was the old reward for the old quest) isn't the artifact they were looking for. The basic outfit formula is generally Hat, Weapon, and Pants. You forge the Legendary Epic Weapon and get the Legendary Epic Hat as a reward, so the last reward will be Legendary Epic Pants, creating Legendary Epic Class outfits.

Jossed. The Epic Pants are the third-to-last reward, obtained after defeating your Nemesis a second time. The ultimate reward is the Ultimate Legendary Epic Weapon, obtained at the start of the battle with your Nemesis's One-Winged Angel form, and the Epic Accessory, completing the outfit. But yes, an Epic Outfit is the final goal. (Not included in the outfit—a class-specific familiar, dropped by the fourth assassin.

The next NS version (I.E. NS 11 and NS 13) will raise maximum level to...

23. If you highlight the text just after a notification about gaining twenty three items, (Or do the same for Warehouse 23 items) you will discover the hidden text FNORD. This makes the number important, though not as much as 11 and 13. The one after that will be NS 37 (In a Row?), as it is the only other number with a notification bonus. After that, there will be no more NS version updates.

Skully said over the radio that the goal is to have NS 15, which also goes along with the fact that level 15 is the last skill you can get from your guild.

Skully has also said over the same radio station that there was such a backlash from updating to NS 13, that any massive increase in mandatory content is less positively regarded by the staff. His most recent comment on the topic was stating that he's not sure if there will ever be an NS 15 or not.

Further, this image sticks with the Naughty Sorceress for at least a few days afterwards, possibly longer, eventually turning into a romantic fantasy. Eventually, the adventurer's archaeologist father, bearing a heavy resemblance to the adventurer, stumbles across the Naughty Sorceress in his quest for the MacGuffin. The two travel together for a brief time, have a quick fling, and then part ways. Nine months later...

There's some level of continuity, since it's acknowledged shortly before you reincarnate that the Naughty Sorceress has kidnapped King Ralph XI again rather than just plain kidnapped him, and that "it's a lot like the Naughty Sorceress had never been defeated", not to mention actual one-time events like, for example, the Grey Plague, but nobody ever mentions any of the stuff that happened in your past life - or one of your past lives, or all of your past lives - like, say, a war between the hippies and the frat boys of the Mysterious Island of Mystery. (Most quest events could plausibly happen more than once, particularly if you apply a bit of Fan Wank, but that's the one where it would be really egregious for nobody to bring it up.) Obviously not everything's reset, though; the Adventurer's class and therefore backstory usually changes, they arrive in the Kingdom already possessing at least one skill from a past life (in most cases), and so forth.

The different time missions via the Empty Agua De Vida Bottles (Bacteria Age, Barbarian Age, and the Future) explain that "Time is a Donut." After the Big Crunch, a Big Bang occurs and time starts over much like it did the previous....time. Thus, Ascension results in Reincarnation, into yourself in the next turn of the wheel donut.

Rene C. Corman, aka Renatus C. Bigg, aka Christobal Colon is aware of this as well as is using this to his advantage.

He doesn't care who gets the artifacts, he just wants you to dig it all out. There's undead corpses of wyrms, bats, serpents, (who come to life if you put them back together, and even if you fight, they still escape plot-wise) and demonic relics that are being uncovered. It's just going to get worse.

So far, so good. The third layer has an ancient stone table with a Demon Name on it and a Demon Medallion that burns a tattoo that lets you contain the power of said Demon Name without damaging yourself. Summoning the Demon Name results in a comment that "the army isn't ready yet."

Also: The large number of bones found in such a small area make this a Clown-Car Grave. The latest version of Dwarf Fortress (for those of you who still don't know what we're talking about) has the HFS in, essentially, an underground Clown Car Base. See the next WMG.

Confirmed. It is this year's Halloween content. Biggs was actually a Necromancer in disguise, and the resurrected skeletons you helped him with invaded Seaside Town; and regardless of how well you fought, trashed the Museum and went back to the Underworld.

KoL is suddenly and for no apparent reason a sequel to Dwarf Fortress.

We're about to find the Hidden Fun Stuff. A major portion of it collapsed somehow (probably Dwarven Ingenuity) and Bigg's Dig goes through that part.

Clearly the Volcanometeor Event is related to Project: *** The World.

The Game Grid Arcade games are all parts of the timeline.

Much like the Empty Agua de Vida Bottle, "playing" a game simply boots you into someone in the past/present/future's mind.

Dungeon Fist! is clearly is the time of Kakrox.

Fighters of Fighting is modern day, since all of the wrestlers/fighters already exist and have their own trading cards and are in the KWE.

Meteoid, Demonstar, and Space Trip all exist in the same future. Meteoid is remote enough not to have much effect on the galaxy; but the Demonstar and its agents are all Murderbots, who serve/are affected by the Evil Source.

The Evil Source becomes infected by Cyrus the Virus and becomes Mai'Lii. (Its death is both the Sixth Element and the Omega Bomb hitting it at the same time.) Note that both the empty Agua Glass Future Space Fleet and the Space Trip TPS have the Hipsterians.

Beating these gives the Game Grid Arcade access to equipment similar to Ascension; related to whichever memory you entered. Some of this gear is sold back to you through tickets.

The Council lied; the Kingdom was always like this.

When you beat the Naughty Sorceress, it is revealed that the monsters won't stop fighting until you leave in a permanent manner. However, you are told this by the Council, who may or may not be trusted.

Considering how Krakox and Your Future Descendant also have to constantly fight people; this seems to be right.

It has been shown that meat has been used as currency for some time before you arrived. Meat is generally obtained by beating up others. Most likely, the Kingdom is made of Blood Knights, or waring factions (frat boys and hippies, knob goblins and knolls) who just love to fight each other. the fact that everyone seems to have a Healing Factor helps things a bit.

Mr. Mination is not the Crimbomination.

This◊ is what the Crimbomination looked like in 2009. There is no picture of him in Crimbo 2010 yet, but he is described as "...he's got two heads and his skin is green, but other than that, he's your basic executive-looking guy." He doesn't look like a former elf, and it seems that he has regrown the second head he had before The Spirit of Crimbo removed it from him. He also doesn't seem to act like the Leader of Crimbo (who is forced to give everything and receive nothing, as noted in '09). Mr. Mination is an impostor, and the real Crimbomination will appear by the 25th.

When he's reverted by Uncle Crimbo at the end of the event, he reduces to just six elves, whereas he was made up of hundreds in '09. Perhaps he's been "losing parts" constantly ever since his first appearance, started by the Spirit of Crimbo readings in '09. If so, losing all but six component elves would easily explain the looks differences.

Who somehow figured a way of consuming vampire hearts for his fix without the negative side effects. The fact that you can drink the leftover vampire blood with little issue is your crazy half-lizard genetics.

Hence the TRON refs. You're not really on the moon; you're in a computer simulation in that booth. As they were dying after the comet hit the moons; they downloaded their minds into a cloaked ship and sent it to Loathing. The radiation and monsters are program degradation. The 'transporter transponder' changes your body to be able to temporarily enter the simulation.

Being able to take items back isn't strange; considering your ability to take items from dreams, hallucinations, reincarnations, etc.

The Kingdom of Loathing is a touristic resort.

An Adventurer Is You is their advertising slogan. You can go there and enjoy an RPG themed adventure. You create your character, and do the adventure proposed by the kigndom. The Kingdom is sustained through the sales of Mr. Accessory. The council, the Naughty Sorceress, King Ralph XI, and all character, and human or human-like enemies are actors, the monsters are tamed animals, and you can enjoy an extensive Lampshade Hanging, absurdist, parodic parade. And shout outs. LOTS of them. Once you complete the quest, you get the option to... Start again!

Some creatures appear in zones that they are not native to. They are much weaker there than in their home. For example, the Booze Giant is not nearly as tough as the Giants in the castle, and the Frat boy in the Barroom Brawl is weaker than the one in the Orcish Frat House. But the most notable example were the Hobelves. The Hobelves in Hobopolis were as tough as anything else there, requiring Aftercore-level gear and strength to beat. The ones that crawled out of the sewer went down much easier, possibly easier than the Crimbco monsters. Outside of Hobopolis, Hoboes drop like flies.

The Traveling Trader travels in more ways than one.

In the Seal Clubber Nemesis quest, you acquire Krakrox's Loincloth, which states that Krakrox was either a Seal Clubber himself, or at least similar enough to count. When you adventure as Krakrox in your ancestral memories, he uses a sword. A Seal Clubber can use a sword as a club, but only with a skill learned from the Traveling Trader. So, for Krakrox to have had this skill, the trader must actually be a Time-Traveling Trader.

This would also explain why he's called the "traveling" trader despite always appearing in the same spot on seemingly random days.

The Trapzor is more important to the Kingdom than we are told.

Most quests get progressively more important the higher level they are. However, in between stopping an immense evil from being unleashed upon the Nearby Plains and saving an entire Barony, you help out one, unimportant old man, the Leet Trapzor. He has access to Penguin Skins (when all penguins are intelligent mmafiosi) Hippo Skins (Hippos are rare and never fought) and Yak Skins (never referenced otherwise). He is the only known exporter aside from the Travelling Trader, who only appears intermittently. What if he is responsible for the Loathing Economy?

Sleaze > Hot: being hot puts you at the mercyofsleaze. Sleaze > Stench...hmm, need to work on that one.

Certains smells, even ones usually regarded as foul, are said to be aphrodisiacs. Take that as you will.

Avatar of Jarlsberg will have us fighting The Avatar of Boris. Avatar of Sneaky Pete will have us fighting The Avatar of Jalrsburg.

We know that Sneaky Pete hated Boris because his boorish nature was off putting to women, making it hard for SP to woo them. That is why he is the End Boss to Avatar of Boris. The, the other two avatar paths will have you fighting the other two avatars. Possible reasons could be that Boris saw Jarlsburg as a huge nerd, and wants to give him a terminal swirly, and Jarlsburg hated SP for all of the chicks he got.

Confirmed! Jarlsberg wants to fight Sneaky Pete because he was tired of not being seen as cool despite being able to mess with the fabric of the universe.

Further Avatar Classes

The Avatar of Sneaky Pete will feature the skill trees of "Crusing"(Combo-based dance attacks, similar to the disco bandit), "Schmoozing"(Charismatic buffs and debuffs) and "Boozin"(Similar to Boris's feasting). It will also use his suit as his familiar(Which can be decorated to act as a fairy, leprechaun, or potato), will restrict his eating to 5, but boost his boozing(As per usual). He will also be forced to always adventure with his off-hand basket, which provides a moxie and item-drop bonus.

Yes and no. He starts with a basket, yes but isn't reliant on it. He's always with his robot girl motorcycle; and his shtick is his Audience; whose perception of him ranges from "actual rebel" to "heartthrob rebel."

The need for Ascension can be traced back to Ed the Undying and/or Lord Spookyraven.

Ed the Undying is immortal, and is still alive when you beat him. Once he pulls himself back together, he'll be right as rain. And we're not sure what sort of Ancient Forbidden Unspeakable Evil kept Lord Spookyraven alive, but it may allow him to come back once you're not looking? One or both of them recover, and since you are no longer around (having already jumped through the Astral Gash), they get to work bringing the Sorceress back to life. Then they bring back all of the other bosses. Then they start causing trouble again, and it's like you were never there. Now you have to come back to set thing right.

Comic theory: Lulcatz was made by Jarlsburg.

The item description for the Festival of Jarlsburg mention that it is a celebration of "that one time he got really drunk and turned a kitten into a demon". He is the only cat-like demon we have seen, and Azazael seems to consider him more powerful than his other minions. Being made by the most powerful wizard that has ever lived may do that to you.

Exploring his Psychosis; we're given the story of how he fought the Yakuza who was using a magic demon-fueled MMORPG as a drug substitute. As one character expositions; even ordinary people are addicted to ordinary MMORPGs. " Dedicated salarymen go absent from work to play them. Parents neglect and abandon their children. People play them until they fall over dead in the internet café!" He eventually enters said Demon MMORPG to destroy it from the inside; however this brief occurrence gave him the need. He "chased the dragon" out of Chinatown and had to use goofballs to transfer his addiction. (And then sell goofballs to pay for that.)

The Mystic Crackpot was the one who lost Byte.

In his journeys in the 8-Bit Realm as a young man; he lost a fight against a legendary evil; and the Byte; the legendary sword that lit up countless caverns and dungeons by its glow, and swung with the deft swings of countless heroes to finish countless quests; was smashed to pieces. He never could bring himself to go to the 8-Bit Realm; his anger, regret, doubt, and fear too strong in his psyche. He constantly sent other adventures to gather pixels; hoping they would find the lost pieces of Byte. Ironically, the Flickering Pixels that made up Byte were driven deep into his own mind.

The Old Man by the Sea was the sole survivor of a ship expedition.

He copes by "overwriting" the memories of the loss of his crew with his memories of pretending to be a captain in the bathtub as a child.

The GameInformPowerDailyPro Dungeon monsters are all animatronic golems.

Each one is of the "object" class; as opposed to being defined as humanoids, orcs, slimes, and other. (You can find this out by absorbed their spiritual residues, or using the Object class One-Hit Kill item.) The character figures the makers of whatever game you read the walkthru for just copied the dungeon. This isn't quite true, the dungeon is the game. It's like a magic Westworld.

Something is manipulating the Avatars to kill each other.

The Avatar of Boris kills the Avatar of Sneaky Pete; the Avatar of Jarlsberg kills the Avatar of Boris; and presumably, the Avatar of Sneaky Pete will kill the Avatar of Jarlsberg. Through the magic of Ascension, this will all happen simultaneously; like in Eternal Darkness. After we play as Sneaky Pete; we'll see who it is and this will launch the next arc.

Case in point, the ending of Avatar of Jarlsberg seems to be happening right after the ending of the Avatar of Boris. You don't fight the Naughty Sorceress at all, because Avatar of Boris did.

The form that the True Mimes will take when (if?) they eventually appear...

"Its cold, emotionless eyes lock onto yours, and you are chilled by the sudden suspicion that its chalk-white face is not greasepaint, but rather it's the facial features — the nose, the staring eyes, the black lips — that are false, painted onto a head as smooth and white as a hard-boiled egg."
Sound familiar?

Rene C. Corman

Wasn't actually the one who forces you into your old body in Zombie Master
In his initial appearance in The Cannon Museum, he seems quite vain about all applicable titles and honors, but doesn't mention The Gray Plague, which is a fairly major accomplishment. In addition, there is reason to believe a human necromancer could force a soul into a dead body. All in all, it seems plausible there's some outside force. Perhaps the same force that motivates the Avatar of Jarlsberg to kill the Avatar of Boris.

He never bragged about it because it never happened. The zombification all occurred in a possible future that was stopped from ever happening; both during the Gray Plague and during Zombie Master. Once all the Time Travel is done; what he accomplished was turning people's voice grey and them coughing a bit. Hardly something to brag about.

Dad Sea Monkee used the last of his mind to spare his family.

He had some conscious access to the Reality Warping before the end. He spared his family by erasing their memories of the recent darkness; hence their not recognizing Mom's....issues and his continued disappearance. He also arranged for them all to die; to spare them from the Cosmic Horror Story that was to come.

Prince Charming is the son of an alternate monarch figurehead with no power and less ambition.

He's too busy balling to run anything; hence the Council of Loathing not concerned about him.

He's also in a partially-alternate dimension where they use silver discs for money. In his timeline; the Naughty Sorceress won, and a figurehead (The face on the odd silver coin) was put up; while the council and the NS worked out who was really in charge. (Mostly her, but the elite got to go to parties and such while everything else burned.) In this world, the various fairy-tale villains; Cinderella's step-mother, The Big Bad Wolf, Rumpelstiltskin, etc. won.

The "Earth Mother" the Hippie Elves are trying to contact is actually some kind of Eldritch Abomination.

What normal spirit would have a name like Gaia'ajh-dsli Ak'lwej? And one that causes people to pass out or contract nose bleeds when spoken aloud? On top of Rudolph the Red trying to bring back the Crimborg, it looks like Crimbo 2015 is about to get a lot more exciting...

Does this even count as a WMG? I mean, what else would something with a name like that be but a Lovecraft reference? Anyway, Confirmed.

The Adorable Space Buddy familiar is the larval form of Elder God of Loathing.

The Mer-Kin hooked Dad Sea Monkee up to a machine that allowed him to be used as a living incubator for the child of Shub-Jiggawatt, the Elder God of Violence, and Yog-Urt, the Elder Goddess of Hatred. The reason no guards are present at the Mer-Kin Temple when you wear six pieces of the Clothing of Loathing is that you are meant to be there - the Clothing of Loathing marks you as the Elder God of Loathing's herald, signalling his entrance into the Kingdom.

Community

Tropes HQ

TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy